TED MILLS, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
April 12, 2007 9:08 AM
Choreographer Ohad Naharin provides a spectrum through which we watch the world anew. In his dances, the pedestrian and even the private and unconscious become poetry, leading to equal parts laughter and rapt silence. Behind it all, there’s an intelligence in the career-spanning “best of” work “Minus One.” Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de MontrËal brought this 90-minute piece to Arlington Theatre on Monday night.
Santa Barbara has seen some of these works before, performed by other companies in other years. But they have usually been one piece among other choreographers’ work. “Minus One” gave us a full evening to explore Israel-born Naharin’s world, and never once did the man repeat himself or repeatedly hammer themes. This time, too much was a good thing.
Naharin has a reputation for his chair work, and during the opening number (formerly a part of his “Minus 16” and “Anaphaza”), it was no surprise to see the entire company — nearly 25 people — sitting in a semi-circle, dressed in black suits and hats.
This number was based around “Echad Mi Yodea,” a traditional song for Passover that this evening was gussied up by experimental rock group The Tractor’s Revenge, and Naharin added a set of movements to every new verse (and like “The 12 Days of Christmas,” there are many, many verses).
By the end, the company had taxed their bodies and their powers of recall, with most of their clothes thrown in a pile in the middle of the circle. Having seen this piece performed before, I can add that it doesn’t lose its simple, primal power — half child’s game, half existential struggle.
A short interlude followed for a group of women dressed in skivvies, and a tick-tock rhythm. Set in low light, Naharin’s work played with the shallow visible depth of the space to create the illusion that this line of dancers stretched beyond vision to the left and right, possibly out into the street.
The first duet of the night morphed from this piece, with a man and woman in some sort of romantic entanglement set to a plaintive guitar-and-voice version of “Greensleeves.” Originally titled “Passomezzo,” the work contains some of Naharin’s most idiosyncratic movements, from crouching tippy-toes to pushing the other dancer around like a floor mop. Beneath the irony lies something like tenderness and humanity and an understanding of how imperfectly relationships work.
Paul Smadbeck’s Philip Glass-like marimba music accompanies the beefcake and loincloth drama of “Black Milk,” a tale, it seems, of individual against group, and of myth versus reason. (Or maybe Naharin has none of that in mind.) What we get is five remarkable dancers and a constant creative pulse that makes full use of their billowing garments and aerial prowess.
Into this quasi-seriousness waded a woman in black pony girl gear on stilts, who lip-synced a mambo number into a radio mike as part of a piece called “Sabotage Baby.” Fans of David Lynch must have been pleased, as it seemed like a mashup of at least three of his movies. She even disappeared, leaving the last note playing, much like “Mulholland Dr.” “No hay banda ,” indeed.
Next, 15 dancers came onstage, donning black suits and hats, dancing side by side and engaging in narcissistic and self-indulgent violence. Then each took a solo, and this turned into the audience participation part of the evening, as each performer selected an audience member dressed in red to come onstage for a dance.
In contrast to that moment’s good humor, the following series of female solos, backed by Arvo P0x8art’s “Fratres,” ached with sadness. In a series of elliptical scenes, these women, dressed in black corsets, succumbed to a betrayal of their bodies and gravity-heavy resignation. When they should have connected to the ground with their feet, they often ended up flat on their backs or trying to lift their heads.
P0x8art’s music, scored for eight violoncellos, combined with these agile bodies, was the most beautiful work of the night. That this and the silliness of the finale, a romping free-for-all set to a house music remix of “Over the Rainbow,” comes from the mind of one man aptly shows the genius of Naharin. Taken together, the whole is greater than the sum — in fact, we left begging for more parts.
Photos by David Bazemore